Who was Vivian Maier? Many people know her as the reclusive Chicago nanny who wandered the city for decades, constantly snapping photographs, which were unseen until they were discovered in a seemingly abandoned storage locker. They revealed her to be an inadvertent master of twentieth-century American street photography. Not long after, the news broke that Maier had recently died and had no surviving relatives. Soon the whole world knew about her preternatural work, shooting her to stardom almost overnight.
 
But, as Pamela Bannos reveals in this meticulous and passionate biography, this story of the nanny savant has blinded us to Maier’s true achievements, as well as her intentions. Most important, Bannos argues, Maier was not a nanny who moonlighted as a photographer; she was a photographer who supported herself as a nanny. In Vivian Maier: A Photographer’s Life and Afterlife, Bannos contrasts Maier’s life with the mythology that strangers—mostly the men who have profited from her work—have created around her absence. Bannos shows that Maier was extremely conscientious about how her work was developed, printed, and cropped, even though she also made a clear choice never to display it. She places Maier’s fierce passion for privacy alongside the recent spread of her work around the world, and she explains Maier’s careful adjustments of photographic technique, while explaining how the photographs have been misconstrued or misidentified. As well, Bannos uncovers new information about Maier’s immediate family, including her difficult brother, Karl—relatives that once had been thought not to exist.
 

This authoritative and engrossing biography shows that the real story of Vivian Maier, a true visionary artist, is even more compelling than the myth.

维维安-迈尔是谁？许多人都知道她是隐居在芝加哥的保姆，她在这个城市游荡了几十年，不断地拍摄照片，直到在一个似乎被遗弃的储物柜中被发现，这些照片才被人发现。这些照片揭示了她是二十世纪美国街头摄影的一位不经意的大师。不久之后，有消息称迈尔最近去世，并且没有幸存的亲属。很快，全世界都知道了她超自然的作品，几乎在一夜之间将她打造成了明星。

但是，正如帕梅拉-班诺斯在这本细致而充满激情的传记中所揭示的那样，这个关于保姆的故事使我们对迈尔的真正成就以及她的意图一无所知。班诺斯认为，最重要的是，迈尔不是一个兼职当摄影师的保姆；她是一个以保姆身份养活自己的摄影师。在《薇薇安-迈尔：摄影师的生活和身后事》中，班诺斯将迈尔的生活与陌生人--主要是那些从她的作品中获利的男人--围绕她的缺席所创造的神话进行对比。Bannos表明，Maier对她的作品的开发、印刷和剪裁非常认真，尽管她也明确选择从不展示这些作品。她将Maier对隐私的激烈热情与最近她的作品在世界各地的传播放在一起，她解释了Maier对摄影技术的谨慎调整，同时解释了这些照片是如何被误解或误认的。此外，班诺斯还发现了关于迈尔直系亲属的新信息，包括她难缠的弟弟卡尔--那些曾经被认为不存在的亲属。

这本权威性和引人入胜的传记表明，维维安-迈尔这位真正有远见的艺术家的真实故事甚至比神话更有说服力。